Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras

lee1 writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have completed a prototype device that can block digital cameras. The team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing used off-the-shelf equipment (camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer) to scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras. The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a thin beam of visible white light. The principal applications are expected to be protecting areas such as government buildings and trade shows against clandestine photography, stopping unauthorized amateur photography of, for example, shopping-mall Santas (really!) and defeating video copying in theaters. The countermeasure: film." Sounds perfect for copyrighted public spaces.

Comments

Sounds perfect for speed cameras

[mrbill1234]

In the UK many fixed speed cameras are digital - as are the automatic number plate (license plate for you americans) recognition for the congestion charging zone in London.

Re:Sounds perfect for speed cameras

[mgabrys_sf]

Traffic light cameras in the United States have been playing games with people who have been modifying their plates with additional paints and plastic covers that either impose polarizing refraction or light scattering techniques. The latter is my pick as adding paint that is of a higher reflectivity is nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye (like those of the police) but does quite the scattershot job on them at intersections.

Note - since the rise of cameras at intersections accidents have nearly doubled in some cases as people slam on the brakes in time for the person behind them to collide with them. But remember - it's safety - not revenue.

Brought to you by your local police and proection agency: To Serve - and Collect.

Re:My question is...

[dougmc]

Personally, I'd rather see cell phone jammers become more common--in restaurants and theaters, especially.

Of course, these devices are generally illegal in the US, and probably most other countries.

You can block the signal, but you can't actively jam it. If you want your movie theater to block cell phone signals, you make it into a faraday cage (which is probably going to be difficult when you need to block microwaves -- just a few inches open is all you need for a signal to get in) and then cell phones won't work.

If you wanted some extra flexibility in that setup, you could set up some dipole antennas for the various cell phone bands in and out of the shielded movie theater, and set up circuits to connect them inbetween movies and break the connections when the movie starts. That way you could turn it on and off ...

I'm not saying that this is a good idea, only that it would be legal. (But being able to turn it on and off like that? I'd say it qualifies as clever if nothing else.)

Personally, I think that technological solutions (jammers, faraday cages) to etiquette problems (talking on your cell phone and disturbing others) are a mistake, and I feel that people who advocate such drastic measures just to prevent themselves from being inconvenienced are more rude than the people they complain about. You don't like the person next to you talking on his cell phone? Don't ask the owners/government to make it so it won't work -- instead, ask the guy to stop, and remind him how rude he's being.

I'd be mighty angry if I was at the movies, and the babysitter couldn't call me and let me know that my children had hurt themselves and was in ICU at the hospital. Sure, I set the phone to vibrate, but beyond that, if somebody calls me, I want to know about it.